


Deductive Reasoning

by Ani272



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Butt Plugs, Crack and Angst, DADT concerns, Non-Consensual Touching, Sex Toys, Swearing, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ani272/pseuds/Ani272
Summary: John notices Major Lorne is moving oddly, and Rodney kindly explains why, then goes on to prove his theory. A few disasters ensue, but all is well by the end.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Deductive Reasoning

**Author's Note:**

> When I read this through myself, I do so from a lighthearted viewpoint. There is a little bit of angst in the middle, but mostly I bring my sense of whimsy along and just enjoy. I hope you will too.  
> With thanks to Salchat for the beta read 😊

Sitting at lunch with Rodney, John noticed Major Lorne was walking a little oddly as he entered the mess. Wondering what was up, John kept his eye on his XO, seeing him select his lunch and then sit, slowly and carefully. Still wondering, John noticed that Lorne was occasionally wriggling a little on his seat, a light smile playing around his mouth. 

Rodney noticed where John was staring, and after a few moments of observation, said, oh so casually, “He’s probably wearing a butt plug. They apply quite a bit of pressure when you sit, and if you wriggle, it takes the pressure off, but it also moves it just enough to get stimulation to the prostate.” Showing no sign of discomfort whatsoever at having shared that bombshell, he stabbed a potato and popped it in his mouth, moaning at the taste of the sauce.

John was stunned into silence… then, “Butt plug?” he whispered, sounding scandalised. “What the fuck, McKay?” 

“Have you never used one?” Rodney asked, baffled. “Amazing sensations, and you don’t need a partner, you can get the stimulation all by yourself – which is probably very useful for your repressed US military personnel, given the archaic mentality towards sexuality they have to live with.” He returned to eating.

Lorne kept wriggling, just a little, a movement here, a movement there. John stared, transfixed. “I think it’s more likely he was injured off world,” he said, a little desperately. “He only got back a couple of hours ago.” 

“Oh, really, Colonel! Your lack of intellect about the most mundane things never ceases to amaze me. Look! I’ll prove it to you. Watch closely and you’ll see how carefully he moves, and that he limps, ever so slightly, as he walks.

Rodney pushed his empty tray away, and then, holding his hand just above his shoulder, clicked his fingers, loudly, calling out “Major Lorne? Major? Can you come here, please?”

“Rodney!” John hissed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Proving my point, Colonel. Watch him, not me, idiot.”

With a little trepidation, John turned his head to watch Lorne, who was looking over at Rodney. “Did you need something, Doc?” he called, but didn’t get up.

“Yes, obviously!” Rodney called back. “Can you please come over here, Major? I see you’ve finished eating. Chop chop! I don’t have all day!”

Major Lorne stood up, very carefully, in slow degrees in fact, as if accommodating some discrete personal angle changes. John started to flush, a healthy wave of red moving up his face. Christ! Rodney was right!

His eyes fixed to Lorne’s body, John saw him gingerly walking towards their table, a very slight limp evident.

Lorne arrived. “What’s up Doc?” he asked, his tone nonchalant, but his voice a little lower than usual.

“Sit, sit,” Rodney said gesturing, but Lorne, glancing at the chair and quickly away again, said, “I’m good.” John noticed his skin was slightly flushed, as Lorne asked, “Can I help you with something, Doc?”

“Yes, yes. I need you and Colonel Sheppard to help me in a lab this afternoon. It’s on the far side of the city and there’s a device there that needs two ATA genes to activate it.”

John turned his horrified gaze on Rodney, but before he could say anything, Lorne had jumped in, “You have the ATA gene Dr McKay, why do you need me?”

“Of course I have the ATA gene! But I need to run the experiment, observe, take notes – I can’t be _doing_ the experiment if I’m the scientist!” Rodney pushed his chair back. “Come on then, let’s get to it.”

Lorne’s face went an interesting shade of red, and he faltered out, “Right now? Um… just give me ten minutes and I’ll meet you back here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Whatever it is you need to do, you can do later,” Rodney snarked at him. “Come on Major, stop wasting time.” 

“Um, I’ll need to gear up,” Evan said, sounding a little desperate. “I won’t be long.” He started to turn away, but Rodney’s voice stopped him.

“Don’t be more stupid than you need to be, Major. You won’t need a weapon for this and anyway, Sheppard’s got his side arm. Come on!” Rodney grabbed his tablet and his tray and made a beeline for the exit.

Lorne looked at John, no doubt hoping for a reprieve, but John was too stunned by recent events to do more than gape at him.

Lorne sighed, and turned – carefully – and returned to his table – slowly – and picked up his tray – with an odd little hitch – and walked off. John watched him go with bemused fascination, then at Rodney’s, “Come _on_ , Sheppard!” he shook his head a little to clear it, picked up his own tray and followed them.

Rodney led them to the transporter, then to another and another, bouncing their way across Atlantis. John stood behind Lorne as much as possible, not wanting his XO to see his expression, or his unholy fixation with Lorne’s ass. John was trying to see if the butt plug was actually visible through Lorne’s BDU pants, but it didn’t appear to be. 

Looking up, Rodney caught his eye and smiled maliciously at him. John glared back at him, quite sure Rodney had manufactured this whole escapade simply to cause Lorne the maximum level of discomfort and embarrassment possible – and probably to cause himself the same thing. McKay had a warped sense of humour sometimes.

“Right,” Rodney said, “here we are. Down this way.”

They entered the lab – Lorne trailing behind a little at the long walk down the corridor – and Rodney set himself up on the lab bench on one side. Over on the far side was what looked like a double shower, a futon and a large round device, almost a console, with four indented places shaped like hands, and various knobs and buttons.

“We’re not sure exactly what it does,” Rodney said, “but it clearly needs two ATA’s, as it has spots for two hands. We’ve tried with just one and nothing happened. So, I need you two to stand here, and put your hands in the slots and think _‘On’_ then tell me what happens.”

John nodded a little warily. A lot of the Ancient stuff was dodgy, or malfunctioning with old age.

The hand indents were low down on the device, and both men had to lean forward to place their palms in the right spot. John heard Lorne make a strangled noise, possibly a moan, as he bent forward, and before he could stop himself, he’d asked, “Are you okay, Major?”

Lorne’s face, already flushed, was now glistening slightly, as if the Major were sweating, just a little. His voice strained, he said, “Fine, Sir. Nothing wrong,” and determinedly placed his hands in the welcoming nooks.

John was blushing himself, realising that bending down had no doubt moved the butt plug his XO was wearing right across his prostate or something, so he silently accepted the Major’s response and said, “Ready Rodney? We’re about to activate it.”

“Yes, ready,” Rodney replied, and John placed his hands firmly down, thinking _‘On’_.

Instantly a forcefield leapt up around the two men, trapping them in, with Rodney on the outside. It shimmered in place and John thought, _‘off!’ ‘Off!’ ‘OFF!’_ He tried to pull his hands out, but a strap had appeared over the top of them, holding them in place. Rodney’s mouth was open and clearly shouting, but no sound penetrated the barrier.

John looked over and met Evan’s startled eyes, and then a beam shot out and hit Evan full on. Another shot out in John’s direction, but it was delayed by a microsecond, and John had ducked aside, so it only hit his left side. 

The hand straps released, and Evan dropped to the floor. As his own hand straps pulled back John staggered due to the loss of sensation in his left leg, but a sudden hissing sound distracted him, and he looked across at the device in horror. A visible gas was being emitted by the device, and wafting to the floor where Evan was lying, and where he, himself, would have been. It hit his own clothes too, as he hadn’t moved far. He bent down to pull Evan out of the way, and some of the gas hit his hands directly. It hurt. 

He heard a strange sizzling sound and looking down, he could see Evan’s clothes starting to… disintegrate as the gas soaked into the fabric.

Shit! It was acid! They needed to strip off! Within seconds, John was ripping at Evan’s boots, trying to untie them, but it was taking too long. The acid was eating through the fabric of his BDUs and was going to be eating skin in a moment. Remembering the shower, he dragged Evan into the double-sized cubicle and thought the water _‘on’_ , then, as it started to rain down, he returned to the feverish job of getting their clothes off. 

It was hard. His left side was numb, so he couldn’t feel what he was doing properly. The boot laces were tricky, and after a few seconds he gave up, pulled his knife and cut the laces for them both, pulling their boots and socks off, then quickly moving to undo Evan’s belt buckle, and pull down his BDUs. He could see burned patches starting to form on Evan’s skin, and pushed him further under the spray of water. Thank goodness it was the same as most Lantean showers and had multiple shower heads. He turned to his own clothes, the acid making its way through to _his_ skin as well, and causing him pain. 

Finally, he had them both stripped off. He’d had to do their top halves as well, as the acid spray had managed to get everywhere. With them both finally naked, he sat suddenly on the floor, under the spray, his body stinging where the acid had made it to skin. He looked Evan over, realising that the burns were worse on his legs than anywhere on John. 

_‘Thank God I ducked’_ , John thought. If he hadn’t, they would both have been knocked out and they’d be severely burnt by now. 

He glanced over at the force shield, seeing it was still up. Rodney was standing there, his hands waving around, clearly talking to people on the radio. Meeting John’s eyes, he started making weird gestures, and when John looked at him with confusion, Rodney half turned around, pointing at his ass and miming a pulling action.

John’s jaw dropped in horror. Jesus! Evan had a butt plug up his ass. Crap! The medics would find it. Shit! What could he do? He looked over at his unconscious XO and drew in a deep and shaky breath. He was going to need to remove it. There’s no way he could leave it for the medics to find – some of them were military, and there would be plenty of other military flooding into this room within minutes to secure it, what if they saw it? Lorne was the 2IC of the base, he couldn’t possibly maintain discipline if his troops knew _this_ about him. 

Feeling very shaky at what he was about to do, John inched his way across to Lorne’s body and pushed him over onto his side. God, he didn’t want to do this! But… if it were him, he’d want some kind soul to take it out and save him the embarrassment, and the potentially damaging revelation. Jesus! All right. _‘I can do this’_ , John thought to himself, then reached out his hands and gently parted Lorne’s ass cheeks. He could see it. A black, silicone plug was sitting right in the middle of Lorne’s ass crack. 

John closed his eyes and reached out his hand, but of course he couldn’t see and ended up sort of caressing his XO’s ass! He pulled his hand sharply back and glanced over at Rodney. Rodney was looking hysterical now, and pointed to the door, miming people running. Shit! Time was up. Reaching down again, John carefully put his fingers around the butt plug and gently pulled. He didn’t want to hurt Lorne, but he had no idea how to do this. Pressure seemed to be working, he pulled a bit harder, the plug shot free, and John sat back on his haunches, the shower washing over him, his hands and the damning black item he held.

Glancing up again at Rodney, he started to lift the butt plug up to show he’d successfully completed the mission, but instead he saw the room filling with military and medical personnel. Shit! Where the fuck was he supposed to hide a _butt plug?_ John closed his hand around it, holding it in his palm.

Rodney and Zelenka now had their heads down over a console in the far corner and were gesticulating madly at each other. John reached over to check Lorne was still breathing – he was – and to ensure all his body parts were being hit by the water – they were. And then there was nothing to do but wait.

It didn’t take long. Within five minutes a sudden breeze ran through the area within the forcefield, sucking out the last of the acid gas, and then the forcefield dropped and a swarm of medical personnel came bustling towards him. 

John looked frantically past them, catching Rodney’s eye, pushing his lips tightly together and glaring at him. He saw Rodney jerk in understanding, then carefully make his way across to John. He got right up into John’s personal space and surreptitiously wrapped his hand underneath Sheppard’s. John opened his hand, the butt plug dropped into Rodney’s and Rodney slunk away, nonchalantly putting his hand in his pocket as he went.

Phew! John’s whole body slumped, and he dropped his head onto his knees.

\----- -----

Evan regained consciousness slowly, his body aching, his arms and legs stinging slightly. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the infirmary again. Great! What had happened now?

Dr Beckett was at a bed nearby, doing something to Sheppard’s arms and legs. Evan winced a little, feeling the pain in his own limbs. 

“I see the Major has decided to wake up,” said a voice. 

Evan recognised it as Rodney’s, and then Rodney was right there, in his face. “I didn’t know it would do that, Major,” he said, looking contrite. Evan reflected at the weirdness of seeing Rodney looking anything other than one hundred percent certain of his own superiority. He shook his head a little at the weird image, and then Rodney was pulled away and Dr Beckett was there.

Fifteen minutes later, Evan had been apprised of the situation and his wound dressings had all been changed, a stronger pain killer being added to his IV. Apparently, Carson had been worried about mixing in too many drugs, given they didn’t know much about the beam that had knocked him out. The Colonel had only been numbed, but Dr McKay said that’s because the beam hadn’t hit his head at all.

With the pain washing away, Lorne closed his eyes and slept.

It was several hours later that he woke again. This time he felt quite alert, no longer half-drugged with that cloudy feeling in your head that he was used to from Wraith stunners. His mind ran back over what had happened, and suddenly, his butt muscles clenched in horror. Shit! He’d had his butt plug in. Where was it now? Who had found it? Were they military? Crap! 

Evan carefully looked around the infirmary, but no-one was eyeing him oddly. He relaxed a little. Someone knew though, and that was dangerous. DADT didn’t necessarily stop guys from using butt plugs, but it certainly suggested that the guy in question liked having things up his ass. Whoever had found that plug was going to be watching him like a hawk, trying to catch him out. Although… maybe a civilian had found it - that would be the best outcome. 

Thinking that positive and hopeful thought, Evan lay back… and then the embarrassment factor hit him. Oh, God! Someone had to have removed it. Oh, that was horrifying… and mortifying. Who the hell could it be? Evan lay there and fretted and worried and felt sick at what had happened, at what might happen next.

\----- -----

John, lying in a bed near his XO, had seen Lorne suddenly jerk, and then look around the infirmary with fear in his eyes. It didn’t take much imagination to realise that the good Major had just noticed something pretty personal was missing. John huffed out a breath. What was he meant to do now? The poor guy was probably freaking out over who had found the bloody butt plug, and what they were going to do with the knowledge. 

John wanted to reassure him, but they were in the infirmary, staff and patients and scientists and all sorts around. This was _not_ the place for that conversation. Nor was it the place to get Rodney to quietly return it. Deciding there wasn’t much he could do to calm his XO’s concerns at this stage, and thinking that Lorne would benefit from some time to reflect, and to realise that it really wasn’t appropriate to wear a butt plug whilst on duty, he settled back on his pillows and returned to his video game.

A little while later, John lifted his head from his game and glanced around, stretching out his neck. His eyes came to rest on his XO, and he saw that Lorne was pale and sweating, his eyes shifting restlessly, his hands clenched at his sides. Bloody hell! He really was freaking out! 

John reached over to grab his radio from the table beside his bed. He tapped it and said, “McKay, get your ass down here, right now.” Evan glanced over at Sheppard, wondering what was going on. He hadn’t heard the Colonel use such an exasperated tone with Dr McKay for… literally months. 

He couldn’t hear the Doc’s response, but after a few moments, Sheppard said, “Because there’s a problem that _you_ caused and _you’re_ going to fix!” he growled. _‘Now!’_ and he tapped the radio off, taking it out of his ear and throwing it back on the bedside table.

Three minutes later, Rodney came huffing into the infirmary and stood defiantly at the end of the Colonel’s bed, his hands on his hips. “What was so important that I had to come running down here right now, Sheppard?” he snarked. 

Sheppard just glared at him, not speaking at all. Rodney glared back. Sheppard leaned forward and glared, tilting his head towards Evan’s side of the infirmary. Then he lifted one of his hands and his fingers mimed …running?

Suddenly Rodney’s stiff posture drooped. “Oh! Well. This isn’t a very appropriate place, is it,” he said, which made no sense to Evan at all. 

Sheppard huffed out a breath and said, still clearly angry, “Maybe not. But you’re responsible for this being a problem in the first place, so you can damn well do something… _subtle_ to fix it.” Then he slumped back on to his pillows and glared again.

Evan had no idea what was going on. Sheppard was clearly angry about something, and it was Rodney’s fault. But Sheppard had just been sitting quietly, playing games on his handheld for the past while. Nothing had happened to suddenly provoke this kind of anger.

And then Rodney turned away from Sheppard’s bed and walked across to Evan. “Um, hello Major. How are you feeling?” he asked, which was such an un-Rodney-like question that Evan’s eyes opened wide in shock! 

“Ah, okay,” he stumbled out.

Rodney swallowed and said, “That’s good, that’s really good. Because…you know… I didn’t realise the machine was going to hurt you.” 

Rodney turned his head all the way around to look over his shoulder at Sheppard, and the Colonel narrowed his eyes at him. Rodney gulped and turned back. “Um, look, everything’s going to be okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be just fine. There’s nothing to worry about, Major. You can just relax here in the infirmary and take your time to heal. There’s nothing wrong at all. Everything’s fine, good even.” He looked directly into Evan’s eyes for the first time, and holding his gaze, he widened his eyes significantly, before lowering them abruptly. 

Then he turned his head all the way around again and looked back at Colonel Sheppard. Sheppard rolled his eyes and nodded, and Rodney flicked his head back to Lorne, smiled and said, “Right! Must go then. Things to do,” and practically ran out of the infirmary.

Lorne lay back on his bed, message received. He whooshed out a breath through his pursed lips. Clearly Dr McKay had helped him out and removed the butt plug before anyone else had turned up, and clearly Dr McKay was perfectly okay with this and it wasn’t going to cause any problems. Lorne lay there, feeling an enormous sense of relief. 

Then he had a thought… well, two thoughts really. The first thought was that Colonel Sheppard had radioed Dr McKay and made him come and talk to Evan, and the Doc had checked twice with the Colonel before being given permission to leave. That was odd, and suggested that maybe the Colonel knew more than he was saying. But the second thought that hit him, right on the heels of that one, was the bloody forcefield! 

He’d been told that he and the Colonel had been trapped behind the forcefield, and as soon as it dropped, the medical personnel had been with him within seconds. That meant… oh, God, no! That meant Colonel Sheppard didn’t just _know_ about the butt plug, he’d personally _removed_ it! 

Lorne felt his body tense all over as he thought, _‘Shit!’_ This was his worst nightmare! What the hell had possessed him to wear the bloody butt plug out of his room, anyway? Well, okay, he knew the answer to that one. It made him feel amazing, and he liked knowing that he was doing something illicit and no-one else knew. But it had totally backfired on him today. And what was he supposed to do now? 

His CO, the man who held the responsibility for upholding the rules and regulations of the US military, now knew, from a very personal perspective, that Lorne liked to have things up his butt. It wasn’t a long jump from that knowledge to the very strong suspicion that he probably liked other things up his butt too… such as other men, which was prohibited by that same US military that his CO had pledged his allegiance too. Jeez! This was a total nightmare.

Lorne slowly lifted his head and peeked across at the Colonel’s bed. Sheppard was looking down at his handheld device, clearly playing yet another game. Only, just at that moment, his eyes twitched up in Lorne’s direction and their eyes met. The Colonel looked like a deer in the headlights and instantly dropped his eyes back down to his game. Then he rolled over on his side, so his back was mostly to Lorne.

A minute later there was a sudden disturbance, and Lorne saw the Colonel sit up, shut off the IV line, disconnect it, and make a beeline out the door. No-one saw him go, because the staff were in handover in Carson’s office. 

_‘What the hell was that all about?’_ Lorne wondered. Then he dropped his head back on his pillow and decided there was nothing more he could do. It was what it was, and events would simply play out in whatever fashion they were going to.

He curled up on his side and waited for the medical staff to emerge and discover that the Colonel had, once again, escaped the infirmary and was at large, somewhere in the city. He laughed quietly to himself, imagining the look on Carson’s face when he saw the empty bed.

\----- -----

Evan was released from the infirmary the next morning, his wounds well on the way to healing. Carson had said the acid was very toxic to fabric, but much less abrasive on skin, and he expected both Lorne and Sheppard to make a full recovery with no scars. 

Sheppard had been rounded up, eventually, but had managed to talk Carson into letting him recuperate in his own room, saying he didn’t need the IV anyway, and he couldn’t sleep in the infirmary. Carson had eventually given in, although he’d looked pretty frustrated by the whole conversation. 

Evan made his way from the infirmary to his quarters. He was planning to have a nice shower, then go and find some lunch. There was a note sitting on his desk as he crossed the bedroom, so he paused to read it. “I washed it,” the note said, all in capital letters, as if the author didn’t wish for anyone to recognise his writing. He crossed to his bedside drawer and found the butt plug sitting there, right next to his precious tube of lube. Evan felt a wave of embarrassment pass through him at the thought of either Dr McKay or the Colonel having to _wash_ his butt plug. That really went above and beyond the call of duty. 

Still feeling mortified, he went to have his shower, then met his team in the mess for lunch. They had no missions for a few days, which was lucky, as it would take that long for his skin to fully heal, but there was nothing stopping him getting on with his duties around the city, and the first one would be to check the status of the paperwork – if he left it too long, it was a nightmare to catch back up.

He left his team to chat and made his way to the office that he shared with Sheppard. _‘Although,’_ he reflected as he exited the transporter and walked up the hall, _‘the Colonel’s never there’_.

Only, of course, today he was. Evan walked nonchalantly through the door only to come to a complete halt as he spotted his CO sitting at his desk, busy reading something on his screen. He didn’t seem to have spotted his XO arriving, so Evan took a very surreptitious step backwards, and then another. 

“I wouldn’t,” Sheppard said mildly, eyes still on his screen. 

Evan stopped, stood for a moment feeling undecided, and then moved forward again, making his way to his own desk. It sat directly opposite Sheppard’s so they could easily discuss operational matters, but it wasn’t very convenient if you were trying to avoid the other person. He sat down.

Sheppard’s eyes rose from his screen and met his XO’s eyes. He bit his lower lip and looked away. Evan had the unexpected thought that his boss was trying not to laugh! Surely not.

But then the Colonel’s eyes met his again and he could see them twinkling. Evan groaned and dropped his head to his desk.

John laughed. “Hey, you’re lucky it’s a sensitive topic, otherwise this would make for truly awesome teasing material,” he said.

Lorne lifted his head. “I thought you’d be mad, Sir.”

John rolled his eyes. “I am mad,” he said, not really sounding it. “What the hell possessed you to wear that thing while you were on duty?”

“I wasn’t on duty, Sir. Dr Beckett gave me the afternoon off, to rest.”

“Rest? And that was restful?” Sheppard’s voice rose to a squawk.

“Well, yeah. For me,” Lorne said, still unsure if this was going to blow up in his face. “Are you going to bust me, Sir? Discipline me? Send me back to Earth?”

Sheppard drew his eyes down, his brow wrinkling. “Of course not. What you do in your own time is your own business, Major. It sure as shit isn’t any concern of mine.”

Evan looked bemused at that. He knew Sheppard was the most laidback CO he’d ever had, but he truly hadn’t expected this to just be disregarded.

John had been watching Evan’s face, and now he said, “I genuinely don’t care, Lorne. I don’t care if you did it because it felt good, or if you were…preparing yourself for a… friend. I don’t care. I don’t consider it any of my business.”

“Oh, well, thank you, Sir. And, just so you know, I wasn’t preparing myself for anyone. It was just… for me,” he blushed a little as he said that.

Sheppard looked at him, a very odd expression on his face. “Never having had the experience myself, I can’t really put myself in your shoes there, Lorne, but if you like it, you carry on.” He paused for a moment, then leant forward, resting his elbows on the desk, and clasping his hands together. “I will say, however – speaking as your CO here – given how… uncomfortably you were moving about, you might want to rethink wearing that thing outside your own room. Even off duty, any of us are likely to be called on at any moment for action, and I don’t think you’d be doing much running in that thing.”

Evan did blush then, a full rush of blood turning him a ruddy red. “Yes, Sir,” he said. “I’d already decided that.”

“Well good,” Sheppard said. “I’ll be able to commend your powers of deductive reasoning in your next appraisal.” He smirked.

That startled a laugh out of Evan. “How lucky we were zapped by an Ancient machine and covered in acid, then! Otherwise, you never would have appreciated my skills in that area.”

Sheppard laughed gently, then said, “Oh, well, news on that front. It didn’t use to be acid. 10,000 years ago, that stuff was actually an aphrodisiac, but it’s morphed since then,” 

“Interesting. That explains the shower and the futon. I did wonder.”

“Yeah, but not the stun beam. McKay and Zelenka are still unsure about that.”

“I guess we were lucky that it was acid and not still an aphrodisiac,” Lorne mused.

Sheppard laughed, and then said, ‘Well, at least you would have been ready for it.” Then he gasped and put his hand over his mouth. “Fuck!” he said, the word muffled. He dropped his hand. “I apologise unreservedly for that remark, Major. It was totally uncalled for and absolutely inappropriate. Shit!”

Lorne laughed. “But so true.” He sat smiling at his CO, feeling light-hearted at the Colonel’s attitude. “I can’t believe you’re okay with this, Sir.” 

“Hey, just because I work for an organisation that chooses to be assholes about people’s private lives, doesn’t mean _I_ have to be an asshole. Each to his own, that’s my philosophy.” 

His expression turned serious suddenly. “Although there is something else we need to discuss…” He sat back and passed his hand over his face. “Look, all jokes aside, there’s the matter of how that butt plug was removed. You were unconscious, obviously, and I… well…” Sheppard stopped and took a deep breath, clearly uncomfortable. “I, um, I pulled it out. I did it so the military medics wouldn’t find it, and none of the other marines that came to secure the room would see it… but regardless…. the thing is, I… well, I…” Sheppard stopped, suddenly stiffening and pulling himself perfectly upright in his chair, his expression changing to one of military correctness to cover his embarrassment. Taking a deep breath, he said, all in a rush, “I committed an act of non-consensual sexual contact, and you need to work out how you feel about that.”

Lorne nodded his head, appreciating the depth of the issue. “I’ve already thought about that, Sir. And mostly I just feel incredibly sorry that you had to do that for me. And really, really grateful that you did. I don’t think everyone would have been as understanding if they’d seen me like that.” He paused for a moment, then went on, his tone diffident. “I did wonder though, Sir, how you came to know it was there? I mean, when you stripped me off, I wouldn’t have thought…” his voice trailed off.

“Oh, well, that’s why I was so mad at Rodney,” John said, shaking his head in disgust. “He told me what you were…. doing… when we were in the mess and I didn’t believe him. So, he made you move, to prove it. And he could have left it there. By the time you made it across to our table it was pretty obvious he knew what he was talking about. But McKay does nothing by halves, hence him forcing you to cross the entire city without giving you a chance to remove it.”

Evan’s mouth had fallen open in shock. He closed it abruptly and sat like a statue for a few moments. “He could tell?” he asked eventually, his voice squeaking.

“Oh, yeah,” John drawled, an enormous and rather wicked smile spreading across his face. “All that wriggling about on your seat! McKay gave me a blow-by-blow account of exactly what that was doing to your prostate, Major.” 

And then John laughed himself silly at the horrified expression on his XO’s face.


End file.
